Demand for bandwidth by enterprises and individual consumers continues to experience exponential growth. To meet this demand efficiently and economically, data centers have to achieve ultra-high density cabling with low loss budgets. Fiber optics have become the standard cabling medium used by data centers to meet the growing needs for data volume and transmission speeds.
Individual optical fibers are extremely small. For example, even with protective coatings, optical fibers may be only about 250 microns in diameter (only about 4 times the diameter of a human hair). As such, hundreds of fibers can be installed in cables that will take up relatively little space. For connections between cables, however, the fibers are terminated with connectors. Multiple fibers may be arranged within a single connector. For example, multi-fiber connectors such as those using LC type connectors may contain and connect two fibers.
Typically, LC type connectors are joined together to connect the optical transmission path of one fiber optic cable to another fiber optic cable or device, and the connection may be made by inserting the LC type connectors in an LC adapter. An adapter generally includes a housing, or portion of a housing, having at least one port which is configured to receive and hold a connector to facilitate the optical connection of a connector ferrule with a ferrule of another connector or other device, thereby establishing an optical connection. Adapters may be used to facilitate connections contained within a chassis. The term “chassis” as used herein broadly refers to a containment structure for housing electrical components or switching components.
The polarity of a connector may is almost always predisposed during manufacturing of the connector and associated cable, For installations where the polarity may need to be changed for one reason or another, such as a renovation or installation of a new optical component, the polarity of typical connectors is not changeable or only changeable after disassembly and reassembly in the opposite designation. For example, some LC type connectors include a modular housing configured such that the position of the fibers terminated within the connector can be reversed, thus changing the polarity of the connector. However, this can be a time-sensitive procedure and, based upon the abilities of the person changing the connector, may be prone to error.
Therefore, there remains a need for multi-fiber, fiber optic adapters that have the flexibility of easily changing the polarity of a fiber connection quickly and efficiently on site.